


Outtakes from the Memoirs of the Author

by wintercoat



Category: The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 06:09:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10551386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintercoat/pseuds/wintercoat
Summary: Mr. Moustafa smiled fondly. I know now that his sentiment was never really meant for me. It was for the ghosts of this building.





	

**January 2004**

I have in my hands an old papier-mâché box. I found it in the desk drawer that does not open all the way. Inside is a workbook with an orange cover.

‘G.B. Hotel, Zubrowka’.

No date. It appears to have been written with an intermittently cooperative fountain pen. Somehow it speaks volumes of my grandfather.

I would like him to be here now, reading his work aloud. When I grew too old for toys, he found in me a patient listener and critic.  
In the present I am alone in his gutted office, still wearing my coat and hat, still feeling as though at any moment he will appear from the parlour admonishing me for standing around in wet clothes.

Sleet has begun to beat against the room’s only window. I choose a chair facing his, open the book, and begin to read.

* * *

I invite you to picture the fledgling Monsieur Gustave in the flocked velvet womb of his beginnings: a vision in violet and crimson twist, flitting from room to room, smiling through lipstick and an acute case of rug burn on the knees.

Perhaps you have imagined, as I had done, that he emerged from his mother lost in a Scholte of London suit, readily annoyed at humanity and its dearth of initiative. Vain, with something of an incompleteness about him.

Dig deeper, and glimmers of the simple, humble Gustave H can be seen, the Gustave now long-dead to all, hidden beneath the stony topsoil of the other Gustave; the one reeling in the wake of Hurricane Old Money.

Madame D. was the latter’s likely origin. She was newly widowed at the time of their first meeting. Tall, of singular beauty, blonde as morning sunshine. Privy to the many uses of a letter opener.

She exhibited a slight limp-- owed to polio early in life-- but this did not diminish the speed with which she chased our friend several circuits around the room before claiming his virtue on the daybed.

“Repeatedly,” Monsieur Gustave would add with an air of weariness. It was always there that the anecdote would end.

Perhaps that would explain the palpable strain of guilt that ran through their gossip, their silences, and the alleged frantic lovemaking.

\---

_Interview with Monsieur Z., dated Jan 5th, 1964_

_“I’m afraid I know very little about his personal life,” reiterated Mr. Moustafa crisply. “At that age, you think you have all the time there is to get to know someone.”_

_“Even a brief recollection is adequate,” I said._

_Mr. Moustafa considered this for a moment. Eventually, he said, “I can recall one particular day. At ten o’clock, I took M. Gustave his breakfast and a new set of cufflinks. Agatha and I saved carefully for them, and it was Agatha who gave me pretty tissue paper to wrap them in. They looked very nice on the silver tray. She always knew just what he liked.”_

_He paused, a little reticent, and I thought he might cry again, but he continued, slowly:_

_“Monsieur gave me a kiss for the cufflinks, a kiss for Agatha, and one more for adding chocolate shavings to his porridge.”_

_I let out a clumsy laugh, and he shook his head. His eyes were guileless and bright with affection. I felt foolish._

_“What was the occasion?”_

_“It was his birthday.” His last. I folded my hands upon the tablecloth, eyes downcast in subtle contrition. “I hope you’ll forgive me these questions. I’m afraid intrusiveness is in my nature as a writer.”_

_Mr. Moustafa waved away my unease and smiled again. “It’s quite alright. I was much the same as you when it came to learning what I could about him.”_

_“In awe, you mean.”_

_“Precisely.”_

\---

At four o’clock, Zero woke the maids and they staggered upstairs under yards of bundled violet silk, gold cord and cattleya orchids in fat sloshing vases; by six, waiters were clamoring and colliding in the corridors; early-risen guests were lost like flotsam in the bustle until one of the boys bobbed up and steered them true.

Zero telephoned Agatha at eight. She sounded fractious but optimistic. Zero thought about her floury fingerprints on the receiver while she talked, until he realised he had almost dozed off.

The party was to begin at midday.

\---

_At that moment, a waiter brought dessert; two slices of dobos torte and a glass of mint tea. Mr. Moustafa set about dissecting his portion meticulously, examining the sponge with distaste._

_“You should have seen the cake Agatha had made that day,” he mused. “She brought the whole thing up in sections. And you had never tasted anything so fine. Not too sweet. The icing was flavoured with rose petals. After the cake-- yes, after the cake, in the late afternoon, I was summoned directly to Madame D's former study.”_

\---

Monsieur Gustave was there, directing a man who was hanging a picture almost as tall as he was. The piece in question, set in a simple, shallow frame, was of Madame D herself. One could tell quite clearly that it had not been finished. The face itself was complete, but the hands and folds of her dress revealed the bones of a working drawing beneath the paint.

Satisfied with his work, the custodian stripped off his white gloves and shook them out on the balcony. “The frame’s dusty,” he said with a high laugh, sweating under Monsieur Gustave’s disapproving glare.

Zero cleared his throat and tried to fill out his uniform a little more. “Thank you, Monsieur--” The custodian started as if unaware he had been standing there.

“Krolczyk.”

“Monsieur Krolczyk.” Zero handed over several bank notes and his hat. “A car is waiting to take you to the station.”

“Much obliged.”

“Huh,” said Monsieur Gustave. M. Krolczyk bowed unnecessarily and shrank from the room.

Gustave rose from his seat and crossed the room to where Madame D.’s portrait now hung.

“Here’s to you, my darling,” he sighed, raising his champagne glass to the painting. “You always spoiled me terribly on my birthday, and, well, at least I’m trying to return the favour. Don’t worry, we’ll get you back to the studio soon enough.” He paused to down the champagne, and then solemnly handed the empty glass to Zero.

“It’s not a bad likeness,” he said at length, “but it flatters her. She had quite a large forehead.”

The ensuing pause prompted Zero to indulge him.

“Yes, Monsieur Gustave.”

“Get Antol up here and have this dreadful frame cleaned.”

“Yes, Monsieur Gustave.”

*

The late appearance of Inspector Henckels improved Gustave’s mood somewhat. Zero extracted the latter from his hovering about the lobby, where he was mechanically trading kisses with the stately women there, and they returned to the study where the Inspector was awaiting them.

Henckels was small and unassuming out of uniform. He extended a courteous hand towards Gustave, a little pink in the cheeks.

“I am here merely as a friend, Monsieur,” he began at once, “even though I have burdened you greatly, and the boy--”

Gustave took the inspector’s hand and held it to his breast. “Albert, Albert. You’ve always been such an angel. Don’t think anything of it any more.”

Henckels looked embarrassed. “And now I’ve called you away from some other important matter. I suppose I have a habit of intruding.”

“I shan’t deny it, my dear, but I haven’t the heart to refuse you. Do have a seat.” Gustave set down a decanter and two glasses on the little walnut table in the centre of the room. Henckels chose a seafoam-coloured bergère behind the door and sat, smoothing out his pressed wool trousers.

“I hope you don’t mind,” said Gustave over a twinkle of brandy on crystal, “divested of my title I’m finding more and more reasons to swill this like a damned duck.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Well then, if you’ll permit me.” Gustave topped off his glass to the brim without spilling a drop.

“You remind me so much of my mother,” said Henckels suddenly, as if struck by the thought. This time he blushed at his own plainness, but Gustave seemed pleased. Smiling rather widely, he said, “your mother and I were much the same, don’t you think? Were it not for our sex.”

\---

_A/N, dated July 3rd, 1968_

_Considering the mythological status of one Gustave H., it is a funny thing that a man such as Albert J. Henckels eludes my curiosity and my pen throughout my various lines of enquiry. All I have come to know is this:_

_He had a wife, a piano teacher twelve years his junior, whom he married in haste beneath shrinking borders and a growing hostility toward the church. The climate being what it was, pastors were thin on the ground. But they were in love, and in stories such as this, that is all that matters._

_One fact that retained any consistency were accounts of Henckels’ resolve: granite, his cunning: unmatched, his leadership firm, but fair. Yet he was a relic of Zubrowka not detestably rich or drowning in Armand de Brignac. Like so many of his fellows his life was merely a shadow on the stubbled fields of his country’s forgotten snowscapes._

\---

_Interview with Monsieur M., dated February 30th, 1964_

_Mr. Moustafa rested heavily on the cane in his right hand. He looked more the man he was supposed to be; grand, ossified, seated in a wide armchair a distance from the drawing room window, his back to the sunlight._

_He was the first to speak. "I'm sure you will know, as a writer, that nothing remains as it is forever."_

_"I have found my state in itself to be rather transitory," I remarked. "I considered Buddhism for a time."_

_"Buddhism! My goodness."_

_"But-- you're referring to the hotel, of course."_

_Mr. Moustafa smiled fondly. I know now that his sentiment was never really meant for me. It was for the ghosts of this building._

_"In a way."_

\---

Zero expected to feel triumphant once the barracks were being disassembled, allowing the Grand Budapest to breath again, tongues of gold and abalone emerging from what had felt like eternal sleep. Instead he sensed reluctance in the military's pace.

Agatha, her arm in his, heavy and slow with child, cast her eyes heavenward as they walked. “They’ll try to cover up what happened here,” she said, “but it's not a mark that can be scrubbed away. There will be a stain.”

The doors and windows of the lobby had been flung open, and bitter wind met the couple in waves. Agatha flinched as the cold hit her bare legs.

“Monsieur Gustave gave me some money,” said Zero.

“Oh?” Agatha walked a little faster.

“The first thing I’m going to do,” Zero continued-- as another gust sent Agatha’s teeth chattering-- “is buy you new stockings. Warm clothes.”

“I don’t want you to buy me anything,” replied Agatha fiercely.

“I want to.”

Agatha paused, her hand outstretched to take her case from her husband. “What?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.” Her hand instead found Zero’s and she held it tight. Her wedding ring was warm against his palm. “Walk with me down to the station.”

\---

_A/N, dated 2nd Nov 1975_

_Saw Catherine off to school today, boarding at the Lyceum Alpinum. This morning I packed her trunk and carried it down the stairs for her. She’s small enough to sit inside it._

_She’s so young, my only girl. I miss her terribly. Shall I have more daughters... They remind me so much of how I’m getting older. On days such as these I find myself in my study reading about Gustave H. again; his life and my notes are a veritable Gordian Knot._

_What am I to do with him?_

* * *

**January 2004**

Beneath the workbook I find a yellowed service bill crunched up between two leather-bound journals. It grabs my attention as it slips free of its hiding place and away, light as a feather. I fail to grasp it; it falls silently to the carpet. I pick it up. There is something scrawled on the back in my grandfather’s familiar hand.

> _ A/N dated Feb 21st or 27th 1964  _
> 
> _\- M Moustafa not in good health today, was not able to honour our meeting this afternoon, will telephone in a day or two in hopes of rescheduling_  
>  _\- Apparently the entire lobby was painted pink. Looking at it now, in all its vastness and varying shades of brown, it fills me with a sense of disconnection, as if I am not supposed to be here. The feeling intensifies over the morning; I return to my room feeling light and not like myself. I am writing this doped and drinking iced water._  
>  _\- Interesting tidbit courtesy of M. Jean last night; my room was almost knocked through to allow for expansion of the neighbouring “Montane” Suite._  
>  _\- Library closed on Mondays, must request those Zubrowka Gazettes on microfiche_

I do my best to return the note to its former crumpled state-- like an origami flattened with age-- and then I move onto the next book. The first paragraph has been rewritten several times over. I recall this particular passage from the published edition. It is exciting to see its conception here. All that is missing is the printed reproduction of that unforgettable face below it; stark, made up of brutal contours, cruelty leavened by mad hair and a sensible moustache.

* * *

DMITRI DESGOFFE-UND-TAXIS - A SKETCH  
As a child, a creature with the wrath of all three Furies, reined in by an omnipresent governess and a rotation of drab ensembles. Dmitri’s mother afforded her son room enough to please himself, however, and he found his greatest pleasure was in Gustave’s undoing.

According to Mr. Moustafa, Gustave was surprisingly sage about Dmitri’s disappearance. When queried upon it, he had looked out of the window (rather redundantly, as it had grown opaque beneath a snow drift), and said: “No doubt he’ll be back. He’ll be back. Like a bad penny. It’s inevitable, dear boy.”

\---

Mourners packed the pews. Those standing occupied the nave and spilled out of the doors into the driving snow. It was requested that all newspersons maintain their distance, so outside they went. Highlights of the service were communicated to the back of the crowd in eager whispers.

As Zero sat in the foremost row, unable to look at the coffin, he wondered what Agatha would have made of all this.  
She might have laughed at such a spectacle. Stern as she could be with her soft lips praying and her hymn book on her knee, she would have hated such solemnity. And yet Zero feared criticism for anything less conventional. He felt very much a coward.

He returned to the hotel to find its halls choked with black velvet. A little man in a bath chair coloured the mood with folk airs, flanked by Muscovites in glossy bearskin coats. Zero was so weary, so weary of people, but again he chose to reserve his complaint and let the press and their questions roll up and break over him. There were also a lot of women, some of whom tried to talk to him, or link arms with him. Zero declined, refused dinner as politely as he was able, and retired to the upper floors intent on remaining there.

He went to the first unoccupied room he could think of, entered, and locked the door. The dead chill of the room brought him back to his senses somewhat, and immediately he detected a lingering odour of smoke-- tobacco, a smell distinct from hot coal, informing him that the fire must have remained unlit for some time. The curtains had been drawn.  
Zero then realised that he was not alone. A man, thin and indistinguishable from the shadows, was standing in front of the fireplace.  
He was scrutinizing a painting that was hanging unfinished on the chimney breast.  
Madame D.’s posthumous portrait, a likeness of precarious accuracy slashed out in oils; paired with its stark frame it seemed adrift in the dense pattern of the wallpaper.

“May I help you?”, said Zero, not one to forget himself.

“I was just looking for a quiet room,” said the stranger without turning around. He had large hands that were scabbed and swollen with cold.

“Can I take your coat?”

“No, thank you.”

Feeling ridiculous for trying to conduct pleasantries in near darkness, Zero found a lamp and switched it on. Now he could see that the stranger’s head had been clumsily close-shaven, as had the remnants of his coal black beard. He looked sick.

“Are you afraid of me?” pressed the stranger, turning around at last. “Come here.”

The command instead pinned Zero to the spot. It took him a moment to realise that his hand had found the door handle again. He let go of it, but remained where he was. He noticed last week’s newspaper lying on a nearby dresser. There was an old studio photograph of him trampled beneath the headline: “Tragedy: Boy Millionaire Turned Widow”.

“They don’t beat around the bush, do they?” observed the man, his sardonic gaze following that of his newfound company. Tired and angry, Zero swept the paper to the floor. “What do you want?”

The man flinched. His gaze was hard, but his answer was subdued. “I’m sorry about your wife.”

Face hot, Zero retrieved the paper from the floor. “Thank you, Monsieur.”

The stranger looked thoughtful, scrutinising the boy, those ruined hands twisted across his belly. “I don’t suppose you’d tell me the whereabouts of our mutual friend?” His unbuttoned coat exposed a battered pistol tucked into his belt.

“You’re too late,” said Zero in a rush.

“Oh.” The man’s eyes lost a modicum of their iciness. “How.”

A curtain of startled crows, hurtling up into the sky. Red on white. Agatha's hands, bitter and cold with sweat.

“It’s a long story, Monsieur.”

\---

_Interview with Monsieur Z., dated Jan 5th, 1964_

_“My God, I would have been frightened.”_

_“Oh, I was frightened. But what was there to fear? He had nothing. Not even bullets for his gun.”_

* * *

**January 2004**

At the very bottom of the papier-mâché box is an invoice with my grandfather's handwriting tumbling down the page.

* * *

_Epilogue_

_In the old days the last thing one wanted to be was green, a babe in the woods. Money lined pockets like hands lined Europe’s gaslit stations and hostels; you learned to dodge the wired loverboys and the animal sounds of drunks and_ tu, kochanie _, your armour was your canvas bag and the stride of a boy who knew his way, even when he didn’t._

_M. Gustave, on the other hand, spoke extensively of the old days as a place host only to the unknowable gorgeousness of Sazeracs and sex in the heat; Saint-Tropez, Nice, the eternal gossip of Monte Carlo’s motorcars and good-time girls._

_Flat and dull as wine spritzers without the wine, really, unless Agatha strode into the bleached harbours of young Zero’s mind, no pall of flour and nothing under her dress._

_The old Zero Moustafa died in his room at approximately quarter past three in the morning, after a short illness. A brief postscript to a remarkable life. He now wanders those sunny climes and pastures that even I, an agnostic, dully yearn for when I cannot sleep at night for wondering._

_I did not return to the Grand Budapest Hotel after news of his passing reached me. Why return to a grave when the spirit is no longer there? Today is only a pale imitation of yesterday. Even its pains have appeal when they are held up to the mirror of the present. I try to picture the hotel as it was, but she has lost something of her mystique to me now. No more than a flayed body, a hollow bauble._

* * *

**January 2004**

There is a side to my grandfather not once betrayed by the gruff exterior I came to love. This rawness, this black glacial tide of despair, reads like an account of some bleak, alien country. I rub the the fragile coral-coloured paper of this final note between finger and thumb.

It's getting late. Rising from my chair, I put everything back inside the box and close the lid. I give the box a conciliatory pat, as if consoling an old friend before parting ways. The powerful smell of rot is everywhere in the old study, but the box carries a frail note of expensive cologne. Hesitantly, I press my nose to the rough surface of the lid. There is a hint of lacquered wood; of chocolates, citrus fruit, even apple. I feel, just for a moment, transported to a time well before my grandfather and I; a marvellous world, a time of beauty.

I wrap the box in a layer of parcel paper, if only to protect it briefly from the sleet, which has turned to rain. As I make to leave, I take one last look around. The desk has a dust sheet thrown over it, ready to be picked up by the auction house. The chair too, and the ancient filing cabinets. This is no longer my shrine or my sanctuary. For me, as for the many characters that occupied my grandfather's world for so long, the word 'home' has taken on a new definition. What is left of it is here with me, in this box, and in his little book on a grand hotel.

**Author's Note:**

> This story has been slowly added to and left and picked up again ever since the film first came out in 2014. I'm tired of staring at it so I thought I would publish it. Now I can finally stop thinking about it every few months. I have a feeling that there was supplementary material released in conjunction with the film, (a tie-in novel or something like that), so I hope I've not completely bungled some part of the film's canon without realising. Anyway, thanks for reading! :)


End file.
